"It'll definitely be a long life cycle and we're planning for the future and the sheer scale of the technology announced certainly shows that it should last many years," he told Digital Spy.

"Ten years, yeah, it's a number that's picked out but I think it's interesting to see the PS2 is just being put to bed now, and that's a lot more than ten years.

"PS3 will continue for some period, and will have an excellent year this year, especially software-wise, it's incredibly well-positioned that stuff that's announced already and more to come as well. We'll keep them all going as long as they are viable."

He continued: "But my own gut feel? The life cycles maybe won't be quite as long in the future as they have been in the past, but they still won't be short.

"I think we're a very, very long way off ever contemplating a one-year life cycle on this kind of device."